Agua Azul

Me and my girlfriend have just returned from a week at Agua Azul. We travelled as a party of 6, with multiple of the party having visited previously and not having a bad word to say about this hotel. Unfortunately for me, and all of us now, this is no longer the case. We arrived on Saturday and on Sunday realised that if we wanted a hope of getting a sunbed that we would have to queue at 8am even though the pool doesn’t open till 9am. Lots of people attend the pool, put towels down and disappear for hours on end. Staff do NOTHING about this despite saying they will. By Monday afternoon, 2 of our party fell ill with sickness and diarrhoea. I had read a few reviews online regarding this beforehand but I didn’t quite realise the magnitude of this issue. By Tuesday night my girlfriend had also fallen ill with severe sickness and diarrhoea, making it 3/6 ill. I spoke to multiple other visitors who had been sick with the same symptoms. One party of 8 had 5 with sickness, a couple on their honeymoon also both had it and decided to cut their holiday short. Another group 4/4 were sick and the poor man had to spend 3 days without his family due to the severity of their illness. I also had several other guests ask me ‘have you been ill?’ throughout the holiday which shows how widespread it was. Everyone had either been ill or knew someone who had been. What shocked me the most was the attitude of the manageress. She came to ‘check up’ on my girlfriend and simply came up with excuses when I said there was a bug in the hotel and it was a welfare issue especially for older visitors who I genuinely feel this bug could be fatal for. She blamed the heat (last time I checked heatstroke isn’t contagious), said cleaners were cleaning (they were, with the same mop for several rooms), blamed other guests for hygiene issues and said it wasn’t an issue with the pool. In England, if this level of sickness was present in a hospital it would be declared an ‘outbreak’ and additional preventative measures would be put in place. That doesn’t apply to agua azul though, they’ll happily continue to allow guests to attend as normal, do normal cleaning, meaning this issue is just going to continue all summer due to the highly contagious nature of this bug. Luckily for me, I didn’t get severe illness but the rest of our party then spent the last 3 days of our ‘relaxing’ holiday completely avoiding the hotel due to the clear outbreak. It is a shame because we liked the hotel room, the pool was nice, bar staff fantastic, drinks choice great. However, agua azul’s clear disregard for the health of its visitors is shameful. Hopefully something changes soon, but based on everything I’ve experienced on my trip, I am not optimistic of this being the case.

What a fabulous hotel we found everything to our liking The room was spacious and well appointed,It is open plan but so are many other hotels now,it’s not ideal but not a deal breaker either. There are branded drinks, good choice of food, pool snacks made to order and lovely staff who are so friendly and efficient The main pool area has limited beds and parasols in accordance with its size but there are two other areas with loungers along with plenty of seating outdoor and inside Great location for the old town and not too far from the strip either The beach is 5mins walk away I would have no hesitation in booking this hotel again